Desert Sun
by Two Lips
Summary: Pumyra has a few things to show Lion-O, if he's willing to listen.


Note: This takes into account "The Pit" and "Curse of Ratilla." Set in the near future after that.

* * *

**Desert Sun**

* * *

"I'm over it," he'd told Pumyra, and the thing was—he was. For a while he was angry about _that_, because he'd thought— He hadn't wanted to get over it; he hadn't wanted to grow out of it. He didn't want to think it was just some kind of crush, here and then gone, like it didn't mean anything at all, not to him and not to anyone else, either.

Cheetara was outside with Tygra, in the little shade the Thundertank provided out here in the wide, wide desert, the earth so dry it flaked in patches. Farther out, WilyKit and WilyKat were digging in the cracked clay, their tails lashing behind them. Lion-O lingered in the hatch, more from reluctance to step into even that little morning heat than anything else.

"Be careful of snakes, you two," Cheetara called to them.

"Here," said Tygra, turning the rifle over in his lap.

Cheetara turned to him. Her claws went up to her face, to check the fall of her mane over her ear.

"I think if I rewire this section, I can double the energy efficiency."

"Mm." Cheetara smiled. Her eyes were lidded, the curve of her mouth a small promise. "I don't know much about tech, you remember."

Tygra made a noncommittal sound and turned the rifle sideways, that he might pop open a narrow chamber and so expose the nest of wires gleaming within. He rubbed at his chin in a gesture Lion-O had begun to recognize; it was a thoughtful one intended to show off his biceps. Lion-O made a face in the safety of the hatch.

"You know," said Cheetara slowly in that sweet, near musical voice of hers, "I'm beginning to think you're just showing off."

Tygra fiddled with the wires; he did so casually, with purpose. "Now why would I do that?"

"Oh," said Cheetara, "I suppose to impress someone."

"And are they? Impressed, that is."

Cheetara tapped a claw at her chin. Her rosy eyes flicked up. "You might be just a little off the mark."

Lion-O's brother leaned into her. At this angle, Lion-O could only imagine how close, if his lips were at her ear or her jaw or even her neck; he did imagine it, and as he thought of his brother's mouth on Cheetara's spotted neck, no hot rage clenched at his heart. He thought: Oh, _gross_.

"Trust me," purred Tygra, "I never miss."

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Lion-O said loudly. He clanged down the walkway and into that sweltering desert air.

Tygra leaned back, away from Cheetara, and frowned at Lion-O. Didn't mean much. Lion-O was used to that by now. Cheetara settled back primly, but the corners of her mouth were tucked just slightly up, as though she'd a secret joke.

"Do you ever intend to learn the first thing about stealth?" Tygra demanded.

"That's funny," Lion-O retorted. "I was going to ask you the same thing. There's cubs right there. You wanna scar them for life?"

"WilyKit and WilyKat are far more resilient than you give them credit for," said Cheetara.

Tygra grinned then. The grin was way worse than the frown. Lion-O braced.

"Maybe you should worry more about your own delicate sensibilities."

"My sensibilities are just fine," Lion-O protested.

The grin sharpened. Tygra's fangs had come out. "Didn't your tutors teach you about the finer points of romance? Or were you too busy not practicing with your sword?"

"At least I know when to pull out my sword," said Lion-O.

"Lion-O does have a point," said Cheetara quite seriously.

"See?" Lion-O puffed up. "Cheetara agrees with me."

"Not about that," said Cheetara. "But the cubs _are_coming over, so if you'd both put your swords away—"

Tygra's grin had gone dire. In a moment he would either break into helpless, snarling laughter or he'd drawl something clever absolutely everyone would regret, for which Lion-O would have no come back and Cheetara would have to make quick explanations for the cubs.

"Have either of you seen Pumyra?" Lion-O asked quickly, before Tygra could get whatever was coming up his throat out.

"I believe she's helping Panthro with the engine," said Cheetara. She threw Tygra a sharp look. "Of course, some other cats would be better able to help."

But Tygra had adapted; smoothly, he said, "But make sure you have your sword squared away, little brother. You wouldn't want to get Pumyra riled up."

Something hot washed up Lion-O's chest; his ruff went up, the fur all down his neck puffing out. He'd a thought, briefly, of Pumyra smirking as she pinned him with her foot at his throat and her ear tufts swinging and then going still against the corners of her jaw.

"Who's getting Pumyra riled up?" WilyKit asked. She plopped down in the dirt by Cheetara and dropped her head on Cheetara's knee. Panting, WilyKat collapsed by his sister and let his head fall on her knee.

"Nobody's getting Pumyra riled up," said Lion-O.

"Aw," said WilyKat. "I like it when Pumyra's mad."

"You shouldn't tease people for your own amusement," said Tygra to the cubs.

Lion-O, passing them all, snorted and said, "That's rich, coming from you."

"You've never figured it out, have you," Tygra called after him. "You start it, but I finish it."

"Yeah, well," said Lion-O, "finish your face!"

Tygra did laugh then, a noisy rumble that shook him and Cheetara beside him, too. Nearly at the head of the tank, Lion-O turned to look back at them: at Tygra, looking back at Lion-O and laughing, and Cheetara looking up at Tygra, her shoulder to Lion-O, her back, too. The cubs were spilled out in the dust beside them.

Lion-O waited for—what? Resentment, he supposed. That old sourness in his throat. It didn't come. Instead, he felt something wistful, almost, pass through him; then it was gone. He was smiling. The realization unsettled. There was something else moving inside him he did not want to look at.

Panthro was closing the hood over the engine when Lion-O rounded that corner. His shoulders bulged, bared back a map of tensed and powerful musculature; when he set the hood down, he did so gently.

"That ought to hold us over to the next town," he said. "But we're gonna need some new parts. These seals are wearing thin, and she's overheating too fast."

"More trouble?"

They looked up at Lion-O's approach, Panthro still bent over the hood, Pumyra resting her hip up on the corner. Her legs were crossed up high on her thighs, and the bare length of her calf bobbed up once then down. She followed Lion-O as he approached them. The corner of her mouth quirked up, her golden eyes wide and dark.

He looked away to Panthro. Lion-O's stomach had twisted. For a moment, the heat had been like a stone dropped on him.

"Nothing I can't handle," said Panthro. "I've got the works to patch her up if any of the seals crack. There's a couple adjustments I want to make to the engine design if the next town's got the right gear. That should help in the long run."

"We could always swing back to the Berbils," Lion-O suggested. "They helped out a lot last time."

Panthro scowled. "I can take care of my baby. Not that I don't appreciate what those little cuddly things did for us." His arms flexed, absently; his metal fingers tightened over the hood.

"Berbils?" Pumyra leaned back, slinging her arm out to balance on the hood. Her back was a long and sloping curve rising up. "Friends of yours?"

"There's a village of them back in the Mushroom Forest," Lion-O said. He avoided looking directly at her shoulder, lean and corded, or the fluid turn of her throat. "They're really friendly and really handy engineers, too."

"And cute," said Panthro, shuddering. "He forgot to mention cute. They're cuddly, too. Gives me the willies."

"They did us a lot of favors when we were with them. Maybe you're right," he said to Panthro. "We probably shouldn't take advantage of them."

"Sounds too good to be true to me," said Pumyra. Her lips were pursed. "Nobody does something for someone else without expecting something in return. Not in my experience."

Lion-O frowned. "People do kind things for others all the time. That doesn't mean they want a reward."

"Maybe that's how it works for you, my king," she said. Her eyes were sharp; they shone like the turn of a knife. Even the angle of her shoulder now was like a blade. "The rest of us aren't always so lucky."

"It's a tough world," said Panthro. He slapped the hood and straightened. "All right, well, I have to check the controls. Try not to kill each other while I'm in there. I don't want to be washing blood off my baby."

"Don't worry," said Pumyra. She slid off the hood. The skirt of her furs pulled up just so, exposing a length of muscled thigh. She smiled sidelong at Lion-O. "I've sworn an oath never to kill my king."

Lion-O rubbed at his chest. "That didn't stop you from kicking me the other day."

She'd been furious in the camp. Beyond furious. Incandescent with it, transformed by it; in her rage, she had lashed out at him as he'd reached to stop her from cutting her vengeance out of the rat's throat. His ribs were still sore, from that blow and from the pit.

Pumyra, crossing before the tank, paused beside him. She was smaller than him, her head even with his shoulder; when she looked up to him, she did not tip her face back but only lifted her eyes. The ink surrounding her golden eyes was thick and very black. She smiled leanly.

"I swore I'd never kill you," she said. "I never said anything about not taking up arms against you."

He turned, his shoulder brushing hers. His biceps, rather. The smallness of her was tempered by the heat of her; if she wanted to, she could have him flat on his back in the dirt and the sun a halo so bright as to throw her face in impenetrable shadow.

"You agreed that there's room for mercy," he said.

"Mercy, sure," she agreed. "But justice, too. You have to learn how to fight sometime."

"I can fight," he argued. "I beat Ratar-O; you saw that."

"You got lucky," Pumyra countered. "That's what I saw." She sighed and put her hands down on her hips; she angled her head and shoulders to one side. Her bright eyes narrowed. "You're strong, but you leave yourself wide open. Every move you make, they can see coming. All you've got is power; you don't have discipline. You wouldn't last a day in the army."

Each criticism was a blow; like each kick she'd landed on him in the arena, the impact was exact and brutal. At the end of it, she blew her breath out hotly, then rolled her shoulders and said, "But you're not a soldier. So you wouldn't know." From Pumyra, it was a kindness, an allowance.

Stung, Lion-O said, "Well, what would a soldier do?"

Pumyra laughed. Her laugh, when it wasn't brittle, was husky and somehow smooth, even for the lingering edges. Her cheek creased. She smelled like earth, dry earth.

She leaned up against him. Too near, again. Her shoulder pressed into his arm, and the scent of her flooded him. Lion-O wanted to step away, but the tank was there, metal already so solid at his back.

"You really want to know?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know," he snapped.

"You might not like it," said Pumyra. "Should I really tell you?"

"I'm your king," said Lion-O. "Tell me."

She smiled and stepped away from him, out from the little shade and into the sunlight. With the morning light catching in the hint of red in her fur and her eyes narrowed against the sunshine, Pumyra bowed her head. Her ear tufts bobbed. She looked up with her eyes alone again. It made her look dangerous. Wild.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, my king," said Pumyra. She straightened. "Just try to keep up."

He followed her back to the hold. Her mane, tied at the top of her nape, brushed her shoulder blades as she walked, first left to right, then right to left. Lion-O blinked and looked away from that soft, pendulous movement, hypnotic in its slightness.

"You could have waited for me."

"Of course, my king," said Pumyra. She threw him a long, amused look over her shoulder. "Since, after all, you're the one who's going to be showing me..."

They'd come back to the walkway. "There you are," said Tygra to Pumyra. "Lion-O was looking for you."

"Found her, too," said Lion-O.

Pumyra crouched in the dirt by the cubs, seated with their legs crossed by Tygra. "What are you two doing?"

"Straightening wire," said WilyKat. He showed the length of wire they were untangling to Pumyra, and WilyKit, picking at the knot at the other end of the wire, said, "Tygra's gonna show us how to use the pistol later!"

"Eh, tech," said Pumyra. "A good blade's more reliable."

"That's what I said," said WilyKat, "but _she_thinks the pistol's cooler."

"She's right about that," said Tygra, looking up briefly from the exposed guts of his rifle to flash a grin at the three of them.

"Where's Cheetara?" Lion-O asked. He shielded his eyes against the sun—it had moved higher, and the shadow the tank cast on this side had thinned—and looked out across the desert.

"Inside," said Tygra. He grunted; the wires inside the rifle spat sparks, and at the hiss, Lion-O turned. "Looking for something sharp enough to cut the wires precisely." Tygra shook out his left hand and then sucked at the first two fingers.

Pumyra set her hands on her knees and pushed upright. Her mane fell over her shoulder as she rose, and she knocked it back with an uncaring sweep of her hand. As she did so, she threw Lion-O a knowing look.

"I was just asking," he said.

"I know you were," Tygra said. He held his hand out to WilyKit. "Hand me that screwdriver, would you?"

"Hand him the screwdriver, would you?" said WilyKit to WilyKat.

"He asked you!" said WilyKat indignantly.

WilyKit held up the knot. "My fingers are busy."

Pumyra pulled her skirt straight, sides even over her narrow hips. Without waiting for Lion-O, without looking, she strode up the walkway. Only at the hatch did she pause, her fingers at the frame, claws arched.

"Coming?"

"Oh!" said Lion-O. "Yeah. Uh. Where exactly are we going?"

"Well, I'm going inside where it's cool," said Pumyra. "You're free to go wherever you so desire, my king, and with _whomever_you desire."

She smiled. Her thickly lined eyelids drooped, then rose up the length of Lion-O; his fur prickled all up his arms. Pumyra vanished into the tank.

"Me-yow," said Tygra slyly to Lion-O.

"Shut up," said Lion-O. "Shouldn't you be concentrating on whatever it is you're doing with that?"

"And to think," mused Tygra as he removed another plate from the rifle's casing, "used to be _you_were the one who wasted all his time playing with tech."

"And you thought it was all useless junk," Lion-O retorted.

"You'd better hurry up," Tygra advised Lion-O. "You wouldn't want to keep your girlfriend waiting."

Lion-O's ears flattened; he felt them go stiff against his head. "She's not my girlfriend!" he hissed.

"Pumyra's your girlfriend?" WilyKat stared up at him in awe.

"No way," said WilyKit. "Pumyra's too cool."

"You're getting two rounds with the rifle," Tygra told WilyKit, and her tail flipped, pleased.

"I don't have to put up with this," said Lion-O. "I'm—"

"The king," chimed both cubs together. WilyKat rolled his eyes and went on: "Yeah, we know. You tell us all the time."

"I'm the king!" said WilyKit in as deep a voice as she could manage.

WilyKat pitched his own voice low. "No, _I_am king."

"I don't sound like that," Lion-O argued.

"You kind of do," said Tygra, chuckling.

Lion-O glared at him. "You encourage this, don't you?"

"What are you doing?" Cheetara, at the top of the walkway. She'd a shallow box of tools cradled in her arms, and she was smiling fondly down at all of them. "Are you teasing Lion-O again?"

"No," said WilyKit.

"Not a bit," said Tygra.

"Yeah," said WilyKat, "but it's fun."

"You shouldn't tease Lion-O," Cheetara told them as she descended the walkway, her careful footsteps ringing gently off the metal. "He's our king."

The cubs fell on top of each other, laughing as they collapsed together. Tygra laughed, then pressed his arm to his mouth in a futile effort to keep the rest in.

"I don't know why you bother," Lion-O said dirtily to him. "You didn't care earlier."

"Ignore them," Cheetara suggested as she passed Lion-O. "You know they're only cubs. All three of them."

"I'm no cub," protested Tygra.

Cheetara set the box of tools beside him. "Sometimes I'm not so sure about that." She stooped to brush her lips across Tygra's brow.

He slung an arm up her thigh; his hand cradled her hip. "Why don't you come down here and I can prove it?" Laughing, Cheetara slid down to set by him, her right leg cast across his lap.

"I'm still here," said Lion-O loudly.

"Why _are_you still here?" wondered Tygra.

"I don't know," said Lion-O, "why _am_I?"

Tygra squinted. "How am I supposed to know?"

"You're the one who wouldn't stop talking!" said Lion-O.

"Boys, please," said Cheetara, flicking Tygra's chin with one claw, "let's try to give the cubs a good example."

"He started it," said Lion-O.

"Don't you remember?" said Tygra. "I don't start it. I _finish_it."

Then WilyKit wailed: "Kat! You rolled up the wire!" and WilyKat said: "You made me! It's not my fault!"

"I'm going inside," Lion-O declared. "At least Pumyra respects me."

"Why do you make it so _easy_?" shouted Tygra after him.

After the heat and brightness of the day, the belly of the tank was cooler; dark, too, with only necessary power enabled as Panthro worked with the engine and the controls. Lion-O was still blinking, adjusting to the dark, when Pumyra's distinctive dry smell neared.

"Catch," she said.

A shadow flashed before him. Lion-O threw his hands up and caught, then fumbled, a weighted pouch that squished under his fingers. "What's this?"

"It's a canteen," said Pumyra wryly. She paused at the top of the walkway and turned to look over her shoulder at him, her ear tufts swinging. A swollen canteen hung from a cord wrapped about her own hip. "Only a fool would run in the desert without water. My king is surely not a fool."

"And we're running in the desert why?" He tossed the canteen up and caught it again.

"You're the one who wanted me to train you," said Pumyra. "And I'm tired of being cooped up in this tank all day. You can stay here if you want," she called back to him as she descended the walkway. "Either way, I'm heading out."

Lion-O hooked the canteen on his belt next to the sword and gauntlet and followed her back into that blasted heat. As the hour progressed, so, too, did the blistering weight of the sun. Pumyra had stopped at the foot of the walkway to stretch, long, lean arms pulled up over her head so her back and neck arched. Her mane shivered. Her toes curled in the dirt, claws digging in.

"Do you want any company?" asked Cheetara. She smiled at Pumyra and Lion-O from her spot before Tygra; the tools were spread out between them. The cubs had gone off on their own again. Tygra, a screwdriver laid sidelong between his lips, mumbled to Cheetara, and she handed him the cutters.

As she stretched her legs out one by one, Pumyra made a little huffing sound. Her palms were at her hips; when she stretched, her fingers pressed into the flat plane of her backside.

Lion-O looked away quickly. Cheetara's smile went sly. He cleared his throat, fist at his mouth.

"No," he said, "I think we're good."

"Don't go too far," shouted Panthro. He leaned over the top of the tank, hands splayed across his thick thighs. "I'm planning to have her up and running in the next couple hours. We want to get moving before nightfall."

"Don't worry, sir," said Pumyra, rising from her crouch. "I'll bring him back in one piece. Not a hair out of place on his pretty cub's face."

Lion-O felt self-consciously at his jaw, tracing the bones beneath his skin and the fat that still lingered in his cheeks. "I don't have a cub's face."

"Not when I'm done with you," she laughed. "Come on. Let's see if those long legs of yours are for more than show."

She started off at a slow lope, kicking up dust with each step. Lion-O sighed and followed her.

"Make sure you have water!"

That was Tygra. Lion-O waved his hand once through the air and patted his hip.

"Give me some credit!"

"I just don't want to have drag you back to the tank," yelled Tygra.

Lion-O checked for the cubs, then, the coast clear, threw Tygra a rude hand gesture: lick my tail. Tygra mock-roared at him, and as Lion-O and Pumyra ventured out into the desert proper, he heard Cheetara say, "You—"

Then they were too far out, and a hot wind the tank had blocked hit Lion-O mid-lope, pushing him so he'd no choice but to lengthen his stride. He caught up to Pumyra easily enough. He was taller, his legs longer, but her breathing was steadier than his, her gait smoother.

"I didn't know you sheltered palace cats knew signs like that."

"I picked some stuff up here and there," said Lion-O. "Even us sheltered palace cats have to go out sometime."

Pumyra picked up the pace. Her mane fluttered, ear tufts too. "Let me guess. Our king liked to go out into the city in disguise."

Lion-O winced. "You figured that out, huh."

"Did just now," she said. She flashed him a sidelong smile, her eyes lidding. "Bet you had fun, too. Pretending like you were a lowly slum cat. Maybe even got yourself a lowly slum cat girlfriend. Of course, you couldn't tell her who you were."

The desert earth was hard, packed down but for where, cracked, it turned up. The leather guards protecting the soft undersides of his feet bit into the pads of his toes. Pumyra ran bare-footed and quick. If the heat of the earth bothered her, she didn't show it. She'd fought barefoot in the pit, too.

"I didn't have a girlfriend," said Lion-O. "I wouldn't have lied to someone like that."

"Ahh," said Pumyra. "There's that nobility again."

"It's not a question of nobility," he argued.

They were paced together now, his shoulder aligned with hers, but even as his arm, swinging forward, brushed hers, swinging back, Pumyra quickened again.

"It's just—natural decency."

"Naturally. Were you that noble, sorry, decent when your brother picked up your girl?"

"She wasn't my girl," said Lion-O. Old shame unfurled in his gut; it swelled in his throat. "And he didn't pick her. She picked him."

The wind shifted, cutting at an angle that sent Pumyra's mane swaying nearly up to her shoulder. Her narrow shoulder blades worked, pumping as her arms pumped. Her back was knotted with lean muscle. Thighs, too.

Lion-O leaned into his run and pushed to catch up with her, though a warm stitch had begun to work up his side. Each step ground into the dirt.

"Were you always this understanding?"

Pumyra's gaze was sharp. He looked forward and not at her, to the shimmering horizon and not to her amber eyes.

"No," he said shortly.

They ran on a distance, hot sky above them, hot earth beneath, the horizon stretching out and out before them.

Pumyra said, "So what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," he snapped.

She laughed. "You did something."

Another silence. He chanced a look over his shoulder. The tank was a dark smear far behind them, and the sun above it was a beacon unblocked by cloud or edifice. The sky was nearly white with it. The stitch in his side bit at his ribs; it pinched his gut. He sucked in a breath that scraped in his throat.

"I was a jerk," said Lion-O at last. He concentrated on his feet. "I threw her friendship back in her face. Like it was her fault. I thought something was there that wasn't and I took it out on her."

"But not on your brother?"

"I took it out on him, too," he said.

"Not very kingly," said Pumyra.

"No," said Lion-O, "it wasn't." He slowed, clutching at his side. "Hold on. I need to rest a minute."

Pumyra looped back, sliding into a jog and then a stroll as Lion-O bent in half and breathed raggedly, his chest and throat aching. He closed his eyes against the heat and the light. His fur stuck to his throat; sweat slicked his face, plastered his fur to his skin in ways that made him feel grimy and used up.

"You were right," he gasped. "I do need to train."

"Drink some water," said Pumyra. "I don't want to drag you back to the tank, either."

He straightened and grabbed for his canteen, unhooking it from his belt. The sword tapped against his thigh.

"Should've left that behind," Pumyra advised. She was breathing deeply, though not with so little control as Lion-O; her chest rose and fell, and rose and fell, and did so again in steady rhythm. "It's dead weight in a run."

He shook his head and swallowed. The water was warmed by the run and the sun, but the wetness of it in his mouth was little short of wondrous. "Can't. If the tank were attacked—"

"Or if we were attacked," suggested Pumyra.

Lion-O scratched at his mane. "Well, if I have the sword, I can use it to defend them. Or us."

At this, Pumyra smiled, that small, soft, pleased smile that made her eyes crinkle at the corners. She smiled like that so rarely; more common, the hunter's curling smirk or the dagger point of a grin. Then she looked down, away from him, and began unwinding the cord knotted about her waist, from which her own canteen hung.

"I'm sure you won't treat the next girl so badly," said Pumyra.

"What?" Lion-O lowered his canteen.

"The next girl you like," she said, making a try to keep up gesture with her hand. "From what I can tell you've already grown up a lot." She eyed him over her canteen, eyes lingering on his shoulders in a way that made his skin itch and his nape prick.

"Uh," said Lion-O, "thank you."

"Don't mention it," said Pumyra.

With the sun warm in her face, she looked— He didn't know how she looked. Wild, still. Eyes bright. Mouth still soft there at the corners. The shape of her face was all sharp angles; the line of her throat was a slow burn.

The stitch in his chest remained. His belly was tight.

"Listen," said Lion-O, "don't take this wrong way."

"That's promising," said Pumyra, but she said it low enough he could pretend he hadn't heard anything. He frowned anyway, just to let her know her gesture was noted but not appreciated.

Pumyra bent her head and made an exaggerated gesture with her arm, twirling her hand before her as she brought her arm down in a long arc. "Please, my king. Continue. I am all a-gog to hear what you have to say."

"You're not making this any easier," he said, "and your attitude's not helping much either."

She rolled her eyes and plopped down in the dirt. "All right. Well, you've got until I'm done drinking, your majesty, but then we're moving on."

She popped the cork out and tipped the canteen, and her head, back. Her neck was long, her fur smooth along her throat and a creamy shade of pale at odds with the burnt brown of the rest of her. Pumyra drank greedily, but no water spilled across her mouth.

Lion-O swallowed. His armor was too tight across his chest; it pinched at his ribs. Maybe he should've grabbed his canteen, too, taken a long drag of that water first. Just say it, he thought irritably. The sooner he got it over with, the sooner he could skulk off on his own and lick his fur. Like pulling a thorn out of his paw.

(He'd been a cub, a real little one, and it wasn't a thorn, but a splinter. Close enough. Lion-O cradled his hand gently in the other and brought his palm and its jutting prize to Tygra, playing swords in the corner of the garden.

"Well," said Tygra after he'd looked Lion-O's hand over. Lion-O hadn't cried at all, even when Tygra touched one claw to the swollen spot where the splinter had gone in. "You've gotta pull it out."

"No!" Lion-O reeled back, clutching his hand to his chest. "I don't wanna!"

"You have to," Tygra said, exasperated. "If you don't, it's gonna get infected."

"It's gonna hurt!"

Tygra advanced on him, paws outstretched. "It won't hurt," he coaxed. "I promise. If you do it fast enough, you won't even feel it at all. Come on, crybaby."

Lion-O's eyes stung, but he didn't _cry_; he wasn't a _crybaby_. "I'm not a crybaby," he said. "You're a crybaby. Crybaby Tygra."

"Just let me see your paw," Tygra snapped.

"I don't wanna!"

"It's not gonna hurt!" Tygra grabbed for his hands, but Lion-O thrust his arms as high as he could and even got up on the tips of his claws, too. Didn't matter anyway. Tygra was bigger than him. "Just let me get it out!" His fingers brushed Lion-O's palms, and Lion-O leaned back, back, his arms bending behind him even as Tygra grabbed his wrists.

"You have to swear!" said Lion-O. It came out high, brittle at the edges, and Tygra, still clutching Lion-O's wrists, hesitated. "You have to swear it's not gonna hurt!"

Tygra's face screwed up. He wasn't even all that much older than Lion-O, but already his scowl was a whole lot fiercer, even if he was a big old scrawny crybaby. Lion-O wasn't scared, though.

"I already told you it wouldn't hurt."

Lion-O's heart beat fast, fast in his chest. "You have to swear 'cause I'm gonna be king."

Tygra's hands tightened. "I swear!" he snapped. "So give me your hand, baby!"

"You're not supposed to call me baby," said Lion-O even as he lowered his arms. "Father said—"

Then Tygra, ever deft with his claws, plucked the splinter right out of Lion-O's hand, easy-peasy, quick as could be, and Lion-O, a little flame licking up his hand as the bit of wood ripped out the skin, screamed.)

Pumyra paused, the canteen just at her mouth. Her lips, each a line of pink just thicker than Cheetara's, were parted and they were wet, slick with the suggestion of water. Lion-O's fur pricked all down his neck, halfway down his back, too, along his spine.

Pumyra smiled, her right cheek folding as that corner twitched higher. She picked up the other canteen.

"Here. Think fast."

He caught it easily, one-handed, and Pumyra mock-clapped, tapping her fingers lightly against her canteen. Lion-O passed his thumb over the cork, weighing the canteen in his hand, weighing the words in his throat, weighing the distance back to the tank and how long it would take, making that trek back in silence. He clasped the canteen between his palms.

"It's just, I want to make sure," he said. "Because last time, I was really certain, and I thought—"

He looked down to his hands, the warmed canteen trapped between them. He thought about Cheetara's face, how the corners of her mouth had turned down just slightly when she'd said, "I thought you had accepted this." It hadn't been anger, but confusion. Disappointment. Hurt, he thought now, but then he had only seen his own confusion and his own hurt reflected in everyone and everything.

Pumyra lowered her canteen. It, and her hands, dropped between her raised knees. In the dirt, her feet were bare; she eschewed the open-toed sandals and the minimal plating the rest of them carried to protect ankles, the long and fragile bones of the foot. "I don't like the way they feel," she'd said when he'd asked. "Throws off my balance. Bare paws always worked fine for me anyway."

Now she looked up to him, and her brow was arched, her golden eyes wide but sharp where Cheetara's had always been narrow and gentler for it.

"What did you think?" asked Pumyra. Her voice husked; every word carried the suggestion of a growl.

"It doesn't matter," he said shortly. "I was wrong, and I took it out on my friends when it was my own fault for misunderstanding. So I wanted to ask first this time, before I made another big mess."

"A big mess? You?" She was teasing now, and lightly even for the sting of her tongue. "You don't say. I've never seen you get into one of those, my king."

She was smiling more widely now, the very corners of her big eyes crinkling. There was a gibe in everything she said to him, but the snide, drawled way she said _my king_sounded so very much like something else to him.

"Do you like me?"

He wished he hadn't said it after all. Pumyra stared up at him. The smile had gone out; the softening folds at her eyes unfolded.

"Not as your king," he said. "Or. As your friend."

He faltered on the last. Even more than the question itself, to say—to assume her fealty was not simply to her king, a fealty rightfully owed him by all cats—to think, even, that he would want as much from one who had attempted regicide no matter how valid her reasons— But to believe that they were, now, friends.

"Wow," said Pumyra, but the usual dry amusement had all but gone out of her throat. Her eyelids dropped over her eyes, so very, very sharp. "You just came right out with that, didn't you?"

("It's not gonna hurt," Tygra said.)

"Forget it," said Lion-O. He turned away, fumbled for the cork in his canteen. "It was stupid. It's going to get dark soon. We should probably head back before the others start to worry."

He couldn't get the cork free. His claws scrabbled around it; he couldn't catch the cork. He thought of throwing the canteen to the ground, but then he really would look like cub, and he'd already embarrassed himself enough already. What had he been thinking? Cheetara had been his friend, had only wanted to be his friend, and he'd thought her in love with him. Pumyra, he didn't even know if she wanted to be his friend at all, and here'd he gone and opened his mouth and—

"Yeah," said Pumyra. "I do like you."

Lion-O's fingers settled around the canteen's stubby throat. He hadn't got the cork out.

"I don't always know about as my king," she said. "As a friend, yeah."

She'd her head tilted back, her eyes on the slowly darkening sky. The sun drifted ever closer to the horizon, and as it drifted, night advanced. Her ear tufts, white-tipped at the ends, hung back against the corners of her jaw.

"But if you mean, do I want to chew on your ears a little?"

Under his fur, Lion-O went hot; his ears felt conspicuous, stuck too far out, and hotter even than his neck or his fur under the armor, and he thought: Pumyra's sharp teeth closing on the tip of his ear.

"Gods!" Pumyra laughed. "How long did it take you to figure it out?"

He remembered Pumyra stepping out into the arena. But that wasn't what she meant. His heart thudded wildly.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in the middle of a war—"

"Hey," said Pumyra, "you don't have to snap at me, O, king." Her voice dropped. "Believe me. I've noticed."

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "I should have remembered."

"You should have," she agreed.

She looked up at him. He felt—small, somehow. Smaller than he ought to, when she only just came up to his shoulder. She'd looked infinitesimal down in the pit, and he'd thought: No way she can beat that thing. She had.

"Do you like me?" Pumyra asked him then. She asked it nearly gently, for her.

He looked down to his canteen as she looked up to him. "I," he said.

"It's okay if you don't," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "I've survived worse."

She'd bound his arm up, after. Her hands hadn't wavered as she wound the cloth around the gash her claw had dug into him. She hadn't apologized. He hadn't asked her to.

"I do," he said.

Pumyra stood up. The canteen swung from its strap. He raised his face. She was smiling again, her eyes tipped up but her chin tipped down.

"Here," she said, "I'll make you a deal. I won't laugh at your obvious inexperience."

Her claws crept up his armor plate. The tips skittered. She rose up on her toes, and as she did so, her breath wandered up the length of his throat. The ache in his side filled his chest, his gut, his mouth. He was dry throughout.

"And what do you get?"

It came out of some brash place still within him. Pumyra grinned, and that was the hunter's blade, unsheathed.

"You let me train you," she said.

"You're already training me," he said, mouth too quick for his brain, like usual.

"What do you know," Pumyra murmured against his lips, "the cub got something right."

Her lips were dry, her mouth warm. But it was her claws sliding up his throat, her fingers cradling his jaw, that made his breath catch. Made him turn his head down to her. The smell of her engulfed him. Everything about him was Pumyra.

She sank back on her heels; her hands drifted down his throat and then away. Lion-O's eyes had closed; for a moment, he chased that intimacy, Pumyra so close to him, her hands cupping his face and her lips stroking his.

Then she whispered, "Race you back," and as he stood there, blinking into the sunlight so newly overpowering, Pumyra took off towards the tank. Her mane flashed, whipping behind her as the wind blew into her face.

What could he do?

Lion-O followed her.


End file.
